Reports and data

Which one do you want

Three tools that look similar and answer different questions. Picking the wrong one is the usual reason a number is hard to get at.

A dashboard is for numbers you look at repeatedly: enrollment this month against last, outstanding balance, attendance rate. It is pinned, visual, and refreshes itself. If you find yourself running the same report every Monday, it belongs on a dashboard instead.

A custom report is for a question nobody anticipated. You pick the entity, the columns and the filters, and you get a table you can sort and export. It is the right tool for a one-off, and for anything with conditions a dashboard widget cannot express.

An export is for getting data out to somewhere else entirely: an accountant, a spreadsheet, another system. Imports run the same way in reverse, and are how most schools get their existing students in on day one.

Dashboards

Build your own dashboard from the available widgets, and pin the ones you check often to the sidebar. Different roles want different numbers, so dashboards are per user rather than per workspace.

Adding a new dashboard

Give the dashboard a name that says who it is for or what it tracks, such as "Front desk daily" or "Owner finances". The name is required and Save stays disabled until you type one. The description is optional, but it helps when you build several dashboards for different roles. You add widgets after saving, so the new dashboard starts empty.

Inside a dashboard record

This is the dashboard editor: the middle shows the dashboard exactly as your staff will see it, and the catalog on the right lists widgets you can add to the current tab with +. Use the gear on any widget to change its width or remove it, and drag the handle to reorder. On the left, turn on Primary dashboard to make it the default, and pick a role under Who sees this dashboard before clicking Assign. Be careful with Generate public link: anyone with that link can see the numbers without signing in.

The record is organised into tabs: Finances, Marketing, Sales, Classes, Students, Retention, Teachers. Each one is scoped to this record, so what you see is only this record's data.

Finances

Use the Finances tab to track money coming in and money still owed, from revenue by location and month to overdue invoices and your top debtors. Check the Top 10 Debtors table before a billing run so you know which families to follow up with first. The Liquidity Forecast separates payments already received, clearing, and projected, so do not treat projected income as cash in the bank. Because this tab shows family balances, think twice before assigning it to roles that do not handle billing.

Marketing

The Marketing tab shows how many new leads are arriving, where they come from, and where they sit in your pipeline. Look at Lead Sources to see which channels are worth your budget, and at Leads by Status to spot leads stuck at New that nobody has contacted. The catalog adds a campaign view, a conversion funnel and lost lead reasons if you want to dig deeper. These numbers are only as good as the source you record on each lead, so ask staff to fill it in.

Sales

The Sales tab tracks new enrollments over time and by location, plus how many students are on a trial right now. Compare the Enrollment Trend month to month to see whether open houses or promotions actually moved the numbers. Keep an eye on Trial Students: a trial that never converts is a lead you are about to lose, so follow up before it ends. Student Status shows the active versus inactive split, which is a quick check that drops are being recorded.

Classes

The Classes tab covers the week in the classroom: which lessons are scheduled, how full your groups are, and attendance. If Attendance Rate shows a dash or Attendees shows 0, attendance probably has not been taken yet, not that nobody came. From the catalog you can add Absences Today, Available Seats and Pending Makeups, which are handy for a front desk dashboard. Use the fill rate to decide which groups to promote and which to merge.

Students

The Students tab shows who you teach: how students spread across locations, courses and age groups. Use it to spot a course that is growing faster than your teacher capacity, or an age group you are not reaching. Ages come from the birth dates on student profiles, so missing dates leave gaps in that chart. Add How They Found Us from the catalog to see which referrals bring in students who stay.

Retention

The Retention tab tells you how many students you keep and how many you lose, broken down by location and month. The cohort table is the one to watch: a high drop rate at three months usually points to a problem with onboarding or the first teacher match. Add At-Risk Students from the catalog so staff can reach out before a family cancels, and Churn Reasons to learn why they leave. Drop reasons only appear here if staff record one when they process a drop.

Teachers

The Teachers tab shows how students are spread across your teachers so you can balance workloads and see who has room for more. If a widget says No data, check that classes have a teacher assigned and students enrolled in them. Add Instructor Workload and Substitutes This Month from the catalog to catch burnout early and see where you are relying on cover. Consider keeping this tab to owners and managers, since it compares individual teachers.

Custom Reports

What are Custom Reports?

Build your own tabular reports across students, accounts, instructors, classes, invoices, payments, and attendance. Pick the columns you need, filter, sort, and save the configuration so the exact view is always one click away. Share read-only snapshots via a public link, schedule recurring deliveries by email, text, or WhatsApp, and pin the most-used reports straight to the sidebar.

For questions the standard dashboards do not answer. Choose the fields, the filters and the grouping, save it, and pin it if you will run it again. Saved reports can be exported.

Adding a new custom report

Give the report a name that says what it answers, such as "Overdue invoices by family", so your staff can find it later. The root entity is the most important choice here: it decides what one row means, whether that is a student, an invoice or an attendance record. If you want one line per family, start from families, not from students or invoices. You can join related data later, so pick the thing you want to count and click Continue.

Inside a custom report record

Build the report by clicking the plus next to each field on the left, then add filters and a sort order. The live preview underneath updates as you go, so you can check the numbers before sharing anything. With no filters the report returns every row, so narrow it down first, for example to unpaid invoices only. Once it looks right, use Schedule for recurring email, text or WhatsApp deliveries, or Pin to sidebar for a report you open every day. Remember that a public link shows the data to anyone who has it, so leave out personal columns you would not want forwarded.

Exports / Imports

What is Exports / Imports?

alinaflow ships a complete daily snapshot of your data to a destination you own (Google Drive). Use it to feed BI tools, give your accountant nightly invoices/payments CSVs, archive signed contracts for compliance, or simply keep a copy outside the platform. Imports are handled by our team - email support and we migrate you for free. Your data is yours.

Getting data in and out. Imports map your columns to alinaflow fields, so a spreadsheet from another system does not need reshaping first. Exports cover everything and can run on a schedule to your own storage, which is the safest way to keep a copy you control.